Gold Prospecting Regulations in WA

A Simple Flowchart to Help You Through The Maze!

Gold Prospecting Regulations can be bewildering so Udo and I have put together this flowchart which may help you through the maze when you are attempting your first gold prospecting or metal detecting trip.

The flowchart gives you an overview of the process to help you find gold without breaking the law.

Below the flowchart is each of the headings with further information and links that you can use if you need to find out further information.

If you want a more readable copy of the Gold Prospecting Trip Flowchart just left click the link and print out the expanded version.

As a holder of a Miner's Right you should make contact with pastoralists and other occupiers of Crown land and notify them of your intention to:

- Enter or prospect on that land: or

- Pass and repass over that land in order to gain access to other land for the purpose of prospecting, provided the prospector complies with the additional requirements set out under the Act.

While permission to prospect on Crown land is not generally required you should take all reasonable and practical steps to give the pastoralist prior notification in order to ascertain whether your presence will interfere with the pastoralist's activities.

Exception occurs should you wish to prospect close to specified areas that are listed under the Act, including watering holes, dwellings and cultivated lands. In these cases, consent is required and for your own protection this should be in writing.

Further information on prospecting on pastoral leases and other occupied Crown land can be obtained from Information Pamphlet No 5, Prospecting, exploration, mining on pastoral leases. If in doubt you should make enquiries with the nearest Mining Registrar's Office.

These offices can also provide you with the contact details of pastoralists, upon request"

After you have completed prospecting you also need to provide an "Advice of Minerals Recovered within Section 40E Permit Area" to the Dept of Mines and Petroleum and the holder of the exploration licence.